“Ashes of Love” comes from the family circle around Johnnie & Jack. The record label credits it to Jack Anglin, his brother Jim Anglin and Johnnie Wright. Jack and Jim had sung with their brother Van as the Anglin Brothers. Jack married Wright’s sister Louise, which made the two partners of Johnnie & Jack brothers-in-law, and Wright himself had been married to Kitty Wells since 1937.
Johnnie & Jack recorded it for RCA Victor on 12 October 1951 at Brown Radio Productions in Nashville, with Steve Sholes producing and Eddie Hill, Shot Jackson, Ernie Newton and Paul Warren in the band. RCA released it on 20 November 1951, paired with Pee Wee King and Redd Stewart’s “You Tried to Ruin My Name.” On 17 December 1958 the duo cut it again in RCA’s Nashville studio with Chet Atkins producing, and it opened their LP Hits by Johnnie and Jack.
The lyric uses one image and holds to it. The love is “ashes of love, cold as ice,” the flame has burned out, and the love light that gleamed in her eyes has gone. She ran up the debt and he will pay the price. He trusted their love would stand and made her every wish his command. Now his heart tells him to forget, yet the song ends on “I loved you then, I love you yet.”
The song has passed through many hands. The Stonemans put it on their 1966 MGM album, and Buck Owens and the Buckaroos included it on Ruby & Other Bluegrass Specials (Capitol, 1971). Jim and Jesse recorded it in 1973 at Superior Sound Studios in Hendersonville, Tennessee, for Superior Sounds of Bluegrass (Old Dominion, 1974), and the Hotmud Family used it on Buckeyes in the Briar Patch (Vetco, 1975). Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen recorded it for Hillman’s Sugar Hill album Desert Rose. They cut it again for the 1987 debut album of their Desert Rose Band, whose version reached No. 26 on the Billboard country chart and was the band’s first hit. On Bluegrass Reunion (Acoustic Disc, 1992), recorded in 1991, Jerry Garcia sang lead with Red Allen on harmony and David Grisman on mandolin.
